After 12 years in production, Richard Linklater’s Boyhood will première at Sundance

by Matt Singer

The already-stackedlineup for the 2014 Sundance Film Festival just got a lot more stacked-er(-er?) with the addition of one of the film world’s most eagerly anticipated movies: Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, also known as The 12-Year Project. That title, though not exactly elegant, was more descriptive of the movie’s unique production: Linklater and a small cast and crew met every year for a dozen years to shoot the ongoing story of a family as it evolves over the course of a child’s maturation to adulthood.

After all that time, Boyhood is finally finished and ready to be seen. The first people to see it publicly will be the attendees at Sundance 2014, where the film will première on Sunday, January 19 at 9:45 p.m. Here’s the official plot description from Sundance:

“Boyhood/ U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Richard Linklater) — Filmed over short periods from 2002 to 2013, Boyhood is a groundbreaking cinematic experience covering 12 years in the life of a family. At the center is Mason, who with his sister Samantha, are taken on an emotional and transcendent journey through the years, from childhood to adulthood. Cast: Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Ellar Coltrane, Lorelei Linklater.”

Boyhood’s official page at the Sundance website lists its runtime as 164 minutes, which works out to about 13 minutes of content every year for a dozen years—which will be evaluated and then tweeted about by the Sundance press corps in about 12 seconds.